08 February 2008

Why Obama Is A Sure LoserAnd A Prelude To The McCain-Lieberman DisasterBy Webster Tarpley2-8-8

excerpt:

With David Swanson, Michael Moore, and David Lindorff (who should know better) all joining the swoon of the controlled corporate media for Obama, it is time to re-assert reality. The Super-Tuesday results show conclusively that Obama could never win the general election in November. He would be yet another losing Democratic candidate, acceptable to wealthy elitists but not to the voters from working families of the middle class and lower middle class, doomed to go the way of George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry. He appeals to two groups ­ well-off suburbanites and blacks, and these will never be enough to carry the general election.

Any Democratic candidate who cannot win California and New York should probably call it a day. That applies to Obama, but his situation is even worse. The voter pool for the Democratic primaries is notoriously not typical of the broader US population. The Democratic primaries have been skewed for decades by the presence of large numbers of upper-middle class elitists concerned about environmentalism, race and gender quotas, balanced budgets, good government, corruption, gridlock, excessive partisanship, and related issues. They are not interested in the minimum wage, trade union rights, stopping home foreclosures, and other kitchen table concerns of the less well off. In this year's Super Tuesday, it was estimated that about 56% of the voters on the Democratic Party side had been to college ­ about twice the level for the population as a whole. Yet, even with this voter pool, Obama could not win a single Electoral College megastate vital for any Democratic candidate, with the sole exception of his own home base of Illinois.

OBAMA TROUNCED IN THE MEGA-STATES

The list of states captured by Obama on Feb. 5 is largely a joke, except for Illinois and a couple of others. He proudly lists Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, and Utah. What do these states have in common? They are states which a Democrat could never win in a general election. Under the Electoral College system, Democratic votes in these states are worthless ­ they will be thrown away. How many people are there in the Alaska Democratic Party? The caucus turnout seems to have been below 10,000 people. Idaho is one of the most reactionary states ­ the Democratic Party there could meet in a phone booth. The same goes for Utah. Delaware is a perfect state for Obama ­ rich Volvo-driving, chablis and brie elitists in the Philadelphia suburbs, but it does not look like America. Colorado is another Obama state where the well-off suburban voter can be decisive in a Democratic primary. True, Obama won Connecticut, which has some union voters, but it looks like Greenwich, Cos Cob, and Yale carried the day. Missouri might fall to Clinton on a recount; in any case, the race was very close. Minnesota is a special case because of the Democrat Farmer-Labor Party; this was in any case a state that went for Mondale, for various reasons ­ not a good bellwether.

To win an election, a Democrat must win the Electoral College megastates to get to the 270 plus electoral votes needed to eject the GOP from the White House. Mrs. Clinton carried these states convincingly, starting with California, where all of Obama's money could not save him. California is so huge, so crucial, and so much a symbol of America's future in the Pacific century, that the argument could well end here. A Democrat who cannot win California has no hope of entering the White House. But there is much more.

RICH ELITISTS FOR OBAMA

The Obama campaign looks very much like the past campaigns of Howard Dean, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and other losers of the past. He appeals to wealthy elitists, and therefore has a fundraising base. He can turn out small numbers of dedicated liberal activists for caucuses, as we have seen in Iowa. He can use the Internet to get money in the same way that Howard Dean did. He enjoys the benefits of a collective media swoon, and the systematic fawning of the media elites. But none of this adds up to the ability to win a general election.

Obama lost Massachusetts, in spite of the effusions of the politically decadent Kennedy clan. Despite media hype, he lost New Jersey. He lost border states like Tennessee and Oklahoma that a Democrat might win. Mrs. Clinton had already won megastates Florida and Michigan. She is likely to win in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.